Two people found guilty of accessing photos of dead soccer star Emiliano Sala

Two workers from a British CCTV firm have pleaded guilty to accessing graphic mortuary footage, later circulated on social media, of the body of the late Argentine soccer player Emiliano Sala, who was killed in a plane crash in January.

Sala, 28, was flying from his previous club Nantes in western France to Wales to join Cardiff City when the Piper Malibu aircraft disappeared over the English Channel.

The wreckage was finally located following a privately funded search and his body was recovered three days later.

Police launched an investigation in February after officers became aware that a graphic image showing the post-mortem of Sala was appearing on social media.

They raided the officers of the closed circuit TV firm which held the out-of-hours contract to monitor the mortuary and discovered that the company's director, Sherry Bray and another member of staff Christopher Ashford, had illegally accessed the footage.

Bray had taken photographs of the footage on her mobile phone and then sent the pictures to another person on Facebook Messenger, police said. Evidence showed Bray had also taken pictures of another body in the mortuary.

Emiliano Sala's sister Romina (left) and mother Mercedes (centre) listen to Blue Water Recoveries director David Mearns talk about plans to find and recover the plane carrying the missing footballer and pilot David Ibbotson which disappeared over the English Channel, during a press conference at Guernsey airport.. Picture date: Monday January 28, 2019. The family of Emiliano Sala are "struggling" for answers as a private search gets under way for the Cardiff City footballer whose plane disappear (PA/AAP)An image released by the AAIB shows the wreckage of the doomed flight that was carrying footballer Emiliano Sala. (Supplied)

"It has been the two families who have been at the forefront of our minds throughout the investigation; they have been significantly impacted at what was already a difficult and traumatic time for them," said Detective Inspector Gemma Vinton.